Partners in Celebrating Sustainable Communities

GLBD shares events, projects and issues relevant to the GLBD community in this section.

Working with Community Technology Development Trust in Zimbabwe, Dr. Thompson is privileged to be a continuous student of smallholder farmers, who grow 30 crops on one hectare, offering biodiverse nutrition. An activist scholar, she returns home to join the food movement in transforming US industrial food consumption.

The Future of Food: Lessons from African Smallholder Farmers

Africans across the continent consume about 2000 different plants for their food; only 12 plants provide 75% of American industrialized food. This short talk will discuss the ways African smallholder farmers sustain their genetic wealth--their seeds--while advancing biodiversity of foods. Sharing seeds and knowledge increases biodiverse nutrition, the future of food. African farmers offer alternatives to the monoculture (e.g., one variety of corn across 100,000s acres) of industrial agriculture, with its polluting chemicals and fossil-fuel addiction, that poisons our bodies, soil, water and air.

With a response by Gerry Brisson, President - Gleaners Community Food Bank

MCHR ANNUAL DINNER

Michigan Coalition for Human Rights

Sunday, March 18, 2018
KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
Saru
JAYARAMAN

President of ROC United & ROC Action, co-founded ROC in New
York after 9/11, together with displaced World
Trade Center workers, which has organized
those who work in restaurants to win workplace
justice campaigns, conduct research and policy
work, partner with responsible restaurants, and
launch cooperatively-owned restaurants.

And today I’m in Marks, which, 50 years after Dr. King visited, is still one of the poorest counties in the United States. Memphis and Marks were the first stops on a tour spotlighting the harshest poverty in the nation.

Over the next two months, we will travel coast to coast, from immigrant farming communities in California’s Central Valley to Alabama’s Lowndes County, where families are suffering from inadequate wastewater treatment.

We won’t just highlight poverty, but the inspiring organizing that is changing lives. On every stop, we will meet local organizers to elevate their leadership and invite them into our campaign.

Join us in continuing the fight started by Memphis sanitation workers 50 years ago. Please spread their fight for humanity as widely as possible by sharing this short video today.

Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival

In 1968, Martin Luther King watched as a teacher in Marks, Mississippi cut an apple in four to feed four hungry students. That sight moved him to tears and inspired him to join with others to launch the first Poor People’s Campaign.

That same year, Dr. King traveled to Memphis to support Black sanitation workers who went on strike to demand respect and a living wage. They declared their humanity to the world with signs that read, “I AM MAN,” and their struggle helped fuel the Poor People’s Campaign.

It’s as true today as in 1968: rampant poverty in the richest country on earth is an intolerable sin.

We can’t just remember. We must also fight. On Monday, I joined thousands of fast-food workers in Memphis striking for $15/hour and union rights. We marched the same route sanitation workers marched a half century ago.

2017 Bioneers Conference: Uprising!

The Bioneers conference is a kaleidoscope of diverse experts, speakers, and activists working together to exchange knowledge, amplify stories, and gather together to share and spread practical solutions to our most pressing social and environmental challenges. This mini-documentary brings to life the Bioneers 2017 gathering.

GLBD supports the work of Breathe Free Detroit

The fight for clean air is not over:

IF YOU WANT TO CONTINUE THE FIGHT ON AIR QUALITY IN South Eastern Michigan WITH US, MEJC IS OFFERING A FELLOWSHIP IN CLEAN AIR ADVOCACY! CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION.You will learn about Environmental Racism, technical information on air quality, how to jump in the fight, and be more informed and connected.

Environmental Justice Win! at Detroit City Council

It's not often that we have a victory in EJ. But thanks to all the amazing work from community members, and a historic coming together of all the communities of SW Detroit, we won an epic 4-year battle. We won historic protections for human and environmental protection against PET COKE and other toxic bulk materials! From Alberta Canada to Detroit Michigan we are saying no to more toxic industry dumping their waste on the land, in the water and poisoning our communities right to breathe.

So many people from 48217 to 48216, and all in between, and across the pond stood up for their rights to breathe. Just some of the community members were Dr. Leonard, Theresa Landrum, Vincent Martin, Gloria Rivera, Simone Sagovac, Deb Sumner, Tom Dombrowski, Eric Campbell, Michael Koehler, Rashida Tlaib, Rhonda Anderson, Naim Edwards, Marcia Lee, Maggie and baby Fiona of SDEV, Sierra Club, DWEJ, EMEAC, MEC, Detroit Audubon Society, Windsor on Watch and Council of Canadians, and so many more who were pushing behind the scenes and from home writing, watching council and getting the word out on/in (social) media.

Nick Leonard from Great Lakes Environmental Law Center did SO much work to make sure Council members had all the science and technical information! A BIG shout out to him for a job well done. Thanks too for Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition facilitating all the work, in partnership with WSU Transnational Environmental Law Clinic.

Want to get more involved?

MEJC is seeking candidates for the SE Michigan Community Air Council. What will the CAC do?
attend regular meetings either in person or over the phone to discuss air quality issues in SE Michigan, and those of national relevance
locally
make recommendations to decision-makers for improving the environment of Southeast Michigan
To that end members will be required to attend trainings on issues like air quality, air monitoring and permitting, race and environmental justice, mobile and point source pollution, fugitive dust and more. Meetings are expected to occur every 6-8 weeks. The Council will be responsible for hosting open meetings in which the community at-large and residents of frontline communities can attend, input and ask questions about air quality.

Council members are eligible for a $150 stipend for attending meetings on an as needed basis.
Please apply or send nominations to ejcoalition.michigan@gmail.com.

A Brand-New Short Film About Peace

From the Unify team:

We all want the same thing...peace.

And we know that peace begins from within, with a personal consciousness that contributes to a global consciousness. And UNIFY is here to help bring conscious humans together to amplify and activate our voices in synchronous, harmonious, glorious unity.

So we invite you to unify with our Global Campaign for Peace, which begins now, culminates on World Peace Weekend (Sept. 22-24), and continues for all eternity.

We bring you these opportunities to connect, unify and strengthen the peace within you, and to honor your consciousness as part of our global consciousness.

Reverend Joan Ross and WNUC

Reverend Joan Ross is a longtime community activist in Detroit. Her radio station WNUC wants to be a space for Detroit residents to voice what matters to them.

Detroit’s North End neighborhood is changing.

It's in a part of the city that's adjacent to the residential and retail boom that's drawn so much attention to Detroit in recent years. As that development moves outward from downtown, things are starting to look a little different around here.
Joan Ross is a reverend and community organizer who works in the neighborhood. And like a lot of people who've worked or lived in the city for a while, she's thinking about what those changes mean.

"We always envisioned the station to be a unifying place that groups all across the city had this radio station,"- Joan Ross
Ross says a lot of the investment happening seems to benefit new residents rather than the people who've been here for decades.

She wanted to create a space for those longtime Detroiters to have conversations about their changing city, and she thought a community radio station would be a good way to do it.
“We always envisioned the station to be a unifying place, that groups all across the city had this radio station,” Ross said.

The Poor People’s Campaign

The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival has emerged from more than a decade of work by grassroots community and religious leaders, organizations and movements fighting to end systemic racism, poverty, militarism, environmental destruction & related injustices and to build a just, sustainable and participatory society. The Campaign aims to build a broad and deep national moral movement — rooted in the leadership of poor people and reflecting the great moral teachings — to unite our country from the bottom up.

Toxic Town: Michigan's Most Polluted Zip Code

Professor Paul Mohai of the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment looked at air quality data in a part of Southwest Detroit, called 48217 for its zip code – predominately African American and surrounded by heavy industry. He found 48217 to be most toxic zip code in Michigan. The upside now? 48217 is getting more attention in the neighborhood’s fight for environmental justice there.

Book AnnouncementWhere the Water Goes Around: Beloved Detroit

Where the Water Goes Around: Beloved Detroit is a biblical and political reading of Detroit over the course of three decades by an activist pastor.

Detroit is a place where one can take the temperature of the world. Think on the rise of Fordism and auto-love, the Arsenal of Democracy, the practice of the sit-down strike, or the invention of the expressway and suburban mall. Consider more recently the rebellion of 1967, the deindustrialization of a union town, the assault on democracy in this Black-majority city, the structural adjustments of municipal bankruptcy, and now a struggle for water as a human right.

Bill Wylie-Kellermann tells the story of working out his “place-based vocation” with a simultaneous commitment to gospel non-violence. He evokes the place Anishinabe people tread lightly the banks of Wawiatonong, “where the water goes around.” One narrative thread walks a procession through the streets, a contemporary “stations of the cross,” to the locations of crucifixion today. Another tells the story of resurrection in struggle and human community. Herein are public disruptions, liturgical direct actions, and courtroom trials. In resistance and risk, this book proclaims the gospel in context.